


This town is colder now

by Astre



Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-28
Updated: 2012-04-28
Packaged: 2017-11-04 11:46:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/393478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Astre/pseuds/Astre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometime after the 3rd season finale (definitely after 3-19): if Elena chooses Stefan and Damon consequently leaves town, how well will she adjust to her new Damon-less life? AU: human Elena, which is not very important, actually.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This town is colder now

**Author's Note:**

> PG-13, angsty, some explicit language
> 
> Disclaimer: I own nothing, no commercial gain intended, pleasure only  
> _______
> 
> This fic was a winner at "No Rest For The Wicked awards 2012" (here http://wicked-awards.livejournal.com/30111.html) in 
> 
> Guest Fandom: The Vampire Diaries  
> Friday Night Bites(best dark or angst)  
> __________________________________________________________

Last night she faked it.

In the morning when Stefan dropped her off, Caroline squeezed her hand in girlish awe: “Elena, you and Stefan are so cute together!” Elena forced an appropriate smile. Yeah, they were. Sure, they are. 

“I'm so glad Damon left town,” Bonnie threw in, joining them in the yard. “Everything's back to normal...”

And perhaps it was merely PMS or the unfinished chores but it triggered something inside Elena and she stopped in her tracks and nearly yelled into Bonnie's face: “Whatever you think of Damon, he's still my friend!”

“I thought _I_ was your friend,” Bonnie said. 

“Can't I have more than one?”

“Are we still talking about friends?” Caroline blinked innocently.

Elena _AGH_ -ed and practically ran off. It occurred to her that she had no friends left, for weren't friends supposed to care and, if they cared, weren't they supposed to root for her happiness, and if they did, weren't they to see that she was far from being cute or happy? She was miserable. 

Not that it was Stefan's fault. Not completely, anyway. 

She first noticed that something was not as rewardingly gleeful as it should when she moved to the Boarding House (which actually happened the day after Damon left town for she and Stefan were kinda looking forward to some long awaited cuddling). And Elena was just going downstairs and she was passing Damon's door when she felt it – a little pang in her heart. She ignored it. The door was closed. Damon was away. Most probably _far_ away. And she didn't mean it geographically. 

Two weeks later she plucked up enough courage to ask Stefan whether he'd heard from his brother. She couldn't bring herself to say “Damon.” 

Stefan cast her a look but, as he spoke, his lines were utterly deadpan: “He's gone. I don't expect to hear from him anytime soon. In fifteen years, maybe, or something...”

Elena did some quick calculation, in fifteen years she'd be well over thirty. Not that it mattered, right? She'd made her choice.

But, nonetheless, she started to have _that door_ issue. Whenever she had to pass it she was very conscious of the fact that it was the door of Damon's room. Which was now empty. _Damon-less_ , she told herself with a scorn. As really it was her fault he had left. 

“Why don't you call him and ask if he's ok?” Elena suggested to Stefan once. They sat in his kitchen and Elena was eating some fried potatoes while Stefan was having some bagged blood. They had been silent and the silence was getting oppressive. And Stefan's meal had nothing to do with it. And neither did her suggestion, as Stefan just shrugged: “He's a grown-up. Quite capable of taking care of himself.” They didn't mention Damon's name and they didn't change the topic, instead they abstained from talking altogether. 

Going along the corridor the other day Elena pushed _that door_ open and stepped in. The bed was still unmade and Damon had obviously left lots of stuff behind. It looked as if he actually hadn't taken anything. Even the glass stood right near a quarter-full decanter. And Elena turned and rushed out in some batshit crazy fashion. She banged the door shut, leaning her back against it and slid down. She bit her index finger to fight the sobbing. “Fifteen years is nothing,” she found herself thinking. “And if I'm lucky he'll make it ten.” The fact was she couldn't call him and ask him to come back. It'd be pathetic. And totally unfair. And it was the only freaking thing she wanted to do. Yet, she wiped off the tears and went to refresh herself in Stefan's bathroom. She was hurting. And that awful sensation of a thorn in her heart wouldn't go away. And no matter how many times she told herself that she was not really _missing_ Damon and that it was some freaking nostalgia, it didn't help. 

When she emerged from the bathroom, Stefan was at his table, writing. 

To his credit, Stefan had been trying hard. Only perhaps way too hard. He was so sensible, so reign-it-in, that it bothered her to an annoying level. Like he was playing some kind of role for her sake, like it all wasn't real.

“What are you doing?” she asked pretending to feel playful; she needed some action very badly. And it wasn't physical, there was only so much hurt she could take, before letting it consume her.

“Just jotting down stuff,” he closed the journal and looked at her. And as a smile would be very timely, he smiled and she bent slightly and his lips brushed hers. 

She needed a distraction and eventually they ended up distracting themselves. Once the customary shenanigans were over and Stefan kissed her lips, Elena very deliberately cornered him:

“Why don't you ever kiss my neck?”

He pulled away, rigid and aloof, “You know why,” he said. “I'm not in control.”

Yeah, she knew that. Freaking control it was. But somehow she couldn't take it anymore: “Will you ever be?” she demanded bluntly. She wanted him to react, to get mad, whatever, to show some unconstrained emotion.

“It takes time and you know that,” he said, standing up. “When I opened up to you and let those feelings in, I...”

She nodded and must have even smiled, but she heard nothing more of what he was saying. Feelings, he claimed. Why was it that she saw no feelings but some ice-cold ghost of what it used to be? Of what he used to be? Her choice was turning out to be a trap and the air was running out. She was suffocating. And it wasn't Stefan's fault. For how could it be his fault that the only thing she could think about was Damon? The way Damon smiled, and the way he smirked, and the way he joked, and the way they used to argue and talk and laugh together, and the way he used to take her face in his palms and look at her with his sharp blue eyes. And the way he kissed her like she was his source of life, his grail, his _amour impossible_ , and yet the girl he wanted like she was the one last female left on earth. Damon had promised he would never leave her, it was turning out he had lied. 

And then the night came, when she faked it and asked Stefan if he was done. “It's nothing,” she told herself. “One peak-free night is just nothing.” The problem with the statement was that it was a fake too. She had been faking things for quite a time now. She smiled, she chatted with friends and went to Whitmore and kept returning to the Boarding House and spending time with Stefan. But she was only waiting for him to fall asleep, so that she could slip out of bed and sneak into Damon's room. 

There she usually did nothing. Didn't even turn the light on. She either stood motionless in the middle or sat on the edge of the bed. Sometimes she cried and when the sobs wouldn't go away for a particularly long time she opened the wardrobe and she breathed in the faint smell of his perfume, coming from the clothes he had left behind. But that was a pleasure she didn't allow herself to indulge in too often. She knew that if she was to open the wardrobe frequently the cologne would fade away long before the fifteen years were over. 

It was in the middle of one of her routine nights, when she quietly left Stefan's room. She went outside and she took a deep breath. Was it just her own salty tears or did the air really smell of the ocean? Elena knew that what she was about to do was the most stupid, most selfish, most unfair thing she had ever done in her life. But she took out her phone and pressed a key. 

She was calling Damon, whose number had been bound on her #1 speed dial since last summer. She just needed to hear him say that he was Ok, that's all. Just needed to hear his voice. The purr of ring tones in her ear seemed lifelong. And a petty thought that he was probably _busy_ was nudging her to end the despairing call. But she wasn't giving up, only giving in. And then there was a crack sound.

"Elena!" Damon said in a low croaky voice. "Is something wrong?" 

And it was then that she realized, _everything_ was wrong. Everything around her was tumbling down. And she gasped. And she tried to catch her breath and she panted. 

"Elena!" Damon urged and she could hear an echo of suppresed emotions in his tone. "What's wrong? Talk to me!"

And despite herself she smiled. Knowing that against all the odds he still cared about her... for her... was suddenly the most blissful thing in the world. Yet, she had made her choice, hadn't she? Had sealed her fate. Had decided to stay with Stefan, her one and only, so why the heck wasn't she happy, why was she hurting like freaking hell? And why did all this agony vanish once she heard Damon say her name?

But she just couldn't... could she? Right? 

So, she told herself to stick to the original plan, be composed and simply ask how he was doing and stuff. For who was she to burst onto him like that, all of a sudden in the middle of the night with this frantic distance phone call?

"Elena..." he started again, his anxiety now overt and his anguish tangible.

"Damon..." she forced out. Yes, she was going to ask him if he was Ok, but somehow all she managed to say was, "I can't live without you!"

FIN


End file.
